Positive Momentum Grows

I spend a lot of time considering what to do next. If it’s in the morning while I’m working out, I’m thinking about what painting I want to work on and how I want to make it happen.

There is a growing freedom, however, in the ways that I find myself working. It’s been a good five years before I really poured myself into a body of work and now it feels like the right time to do so again. There is very little to consider, for me, outside of the realm of studies that I will be undertaking.

My first large body of work revolved around shoes, what people do in them, how they tell a story. The idea of a portrait without a direct person was always appealing to me. The problem is that I found the content to be a bit underwhelming. I would blame youth, but I just honestly lacked a focus or drive to move on to something more interesting. I did not realize that one of the biggest factors in making successful work comes from a places of personal ambition. They called it a “sense of urgency” in the work. I always found that particular phrase to be arrogant and drawing from a place of comparison. As if a painting has to be rushing to completion in order to express something meaningful. I think it more or less is that you have to study your own work and life and interpretation and then put together what you want to say. That is how it works for me anyways. These works were very Van Gogh inspired with a great deal of attention given to the mark and the impact of presence with the idea of the art object and the painterly application.

In Grad School, I wanted to document something of my own experience. I would make large paintings that scaled across the walls, some 8 feet across in panels of three. Tiny people, big buildings, and a massive sky to express the outward exposure of feelings. It was a tumultuous time in the big old 2020 and the only release I ever felt was in my studio, blasting shitty punk and annoying my neighbors. Being a bit too arrogant and not investing enough time, fruitful time that is, into the work caused things to suffer. It was a transformative period though and I regret nothing of it. But I do think had I let myself go to bed at 10 pm, wake up at 6, take my hikes and make my lunches and suppers, it would have been a better ordeal over all. I spent most of that year traveling to different states and cities, doing hikes across Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, and Tennessee primarily. Sleeping in my car, teaching from hotel rooms, and being a very stinky and heart broken fellow. It was a good time, I just wish I would have had more open eyes and a heart. I was heavily inspired by Rackstraw Downes, the writings of Sartre, Robert Henri and Mary Cassatt, and the illusionary power of the surrealists though with much less attention given to their philosophy. Probably my most ego driven works came from here but also just an explosion of heartache drove it. I started therapy then and learned a lot more about how to take better care of myself.

Now I have been working on a few lanes. Some pieces I have in mind, in particular, that are drawing from different sources. I am far more inspired by a few artists closer to my heart now a days. A little more life on me and I want to revisit ideas that brought me into art making to begin with. I love the photography of Gregory Crewdson, his obsessive quality of making things happen within the lens is something of a practical miracle. Gustave Courbet of course hits close to home. His idealistic depictions of wealth and power as portrayed against the dredges of society highlight the complexity of social and economic powers, how they both rely on an imaginary component in which we assign status based on practically nothing. Dorothea Tanning’s later work is truly enthralling. I recommend reading her autobiography quite a bit, it gives such great insight into the working world of artists as she grew up through a century of art spaces as a woman in the 20th century. But her paintings show a break and snap that is so delightfully handled, such care given to how each image portrays that feeling of distance and yet groundedness, it’s a flex in her prowess with figure, color theory, and closing spaces while driving a narrative.

So I’ve been visiting these thoughts and people in their writings, the feeling returns that they’re speaking to me as all great art does. Paintings transform the image, the space, the canvas. Literature transforms understanding across the mind. Poetry combines the ear and the heart. Music lives in our hearts. So what can I add? Now I’m thinking it is perspective, once again. Depicting what labor looks like and how it can affect bodies, homes, and spaciousness. I feel drawn to stories that are not my own, once again. I do think a sense of narrative and humor will likely always pervade my work, the main difference is that I can truly lean into it.

It is loose and crude but there is a sense of exploration in the marks and composition that I have yet to find. Something happening here that is rising up from the influences I’ve had. And a great deal of material to be put to use after a generous grant was provided by the state in which I reside.

I’m moving forward and my life is becoming clearer in a lot of ways, I feel the direction taking shape and the wind beneath my wings once again.

Now to finish some pieces and find some shows.